Laos 2000 Travelogue

I've been in Laos between March
26th
and April 4th, 2000. I flew from KL to Bangkok on March 25th then took
the night train from Bangkok to Nong Khai, arriving in Nong Khai on
Sunday,
March 26th in the morning. From Nong Khai I made it to Vientiane with a
combination of taxis, getting the visa at the Friendship bridge. What
follows below are excerpts
of the emails I sent to my fiancee in KL while I was in Laos (she had
to
work and couldn't join me).

25.03.00,
Saturday, KL -> Bangkok -> Nong Khai

I'm in the train to Nong Khai (the
border to Laos) right now. Tomorrow morning I'll cross the Friendship
bridge
and enter Laos. I'll go to Vientiane, the capital. I' ve just read that
it is
extremely
difficult to send and receive emails in Laos. That's because there are
no internet companies in Laos and all cybercafes have to call Bangkok
to
connect to the internet. In other words they have to make an
international
call. I'll go to Vientiane (the
capital)
and then probably north to Luang Prabang. I'll probably stay the whole
time in northern Laos.

26.03.00,
Sunday, Nong Khai -> Vientiane

Here is the weather forecast for
Laos:

Tomorrow: Sunshine
Day after tomorrow: Sunshine
Day after day after tomorrow: Sunshine
Day after day after day after tomorrow:
Sunshine
.................
.................
Last day of my stay in Laos: Sunshine

and the weather forecast
for Malaysia:
Torrential rain the whole week

Today I made it to the
border
at
about 9:30am (can't believe I got up so early). I went straight to
Vientiane
(pronounced 'Vieng Chan'). It's the capital, but it's a surprisingly
quiet
town with very little traffic on the streets. It's also a very small
town.

I just walked around the
whole
day
and had a look at the temples. In Vientiane I am able to send and
receive
email because my mobile phones work (I connect with the Thai networks).

The day after tomorrow I
will
leave
Vientiane and my phones will no longer work. Also, only in a few towns
there are cybercafes, so maybe I won't be able to send emails.

27.03.00,
Monday, Vientiane

In Vientiane nobody
wears glasses on the streets. They only wear glasses in the offices.
In
the whole town there are just maybe 6 or 7 opticians and just one sells
products for contact lenses.

In Vientiane we are at the
end of
the dry season. It hasn't rained for months and the streets are full of
dust. You get very dirty when walking on the streets.

Tomorrow I'm going to Luang
Prabang
by bus. There my mobile phone won't work anymore, but I can still send
emails - just have to go to an Internet Cafe.

By the way, do you know
that
Laos
is a communist country ? It is called Laos PDR for People Democratic
Republic.

29.03.00,
Wednesday, Luang Prabang

Was so tired yesterday.
The
night
before I could not fall asleep, so I got up at 5:30am and took the 7am
bus to Luang Prabang. And here starts the nightmare... It was no bus,
it
was a truck
with a hard
bench and very little space inside. It took the truck almost 13 hours
to
reach Luang Prabang (about 400 km distance). An endless trip through
the
mountains... I thought, maybe 7 or 8
hours,
but
no, it were 13 hours... The funny thing is that the truck left
punctually
at 7am. By the way, the hotel where
I am
staying is quite nice - only 10 US $ but very nice (aircon, WC + hot
shower,
towels etc.) Laos is an incredibly
underdeveloped
and poor country. It's hard to find things to buy as there are no
shopping
centres.

30.03.00,
Thursday, Luang Prabang

Today I was not too well.
Maybe
I
have some flu. So I didn't do much. Tomorrow I'll visit some caves and
then I don't know. I might fly to Bangkok on Tuesday at 16.45 or I
might
take the boat along the Mekong to Huay Xai (two or three days), from
Huay
Xai take the bus to Chiang Rai in Thailand and from there fly to BKK.
Still
don't know.

31.03.00,
Friday, Luang Prabang

In the meantime I have had
a good
night of sleep (which I really needed) and woke up at 11:30 this
morning.
This afternoon I went to the Kuang
Si
waterfalls,
a nice waterfall a little bit outside Luang Prabang.

I have some flu - funny
thing,
being
on the edge to nowhere, somewhere in northern Laos, with a flu. I
should
have stayed the whole day in bed and avoided the sun, instead I spent
an active day and even got wet clothes at
the waterfall.

01.04.00,
Saturday, Luang Prabang

Today I was again in
Luang
Prabang
and visited more temples and a museum. The weather is so-so, clouds but
no rain.

03.04.00,
Monday, Luang Prabang

In any case tomorrow I'll
fly to
BKK (16:45). Here in Laos it is very hot and dry. Absolutely no
rain.
Today I went again to the waterfall. I took many pictures
of locals (grown-ups + children).
In a pharmacy I saw a lot of products
against intestinal worms. Apparently this is a problem in Laos.

04.04.00,
Tuesday, Luang Prabang -> Bangkok

I'm completely wet.... Lao New Year is approaching
and
groups
of Lao kids and teenagers are organising street-blockades,
where they throw water on everybody who passes (to symbolise the coming
of the new year). It's 1.30pm now and half an
hour
ago, while on the way to my restaurant, I passed such a street
blockade.
I got completely, absolutely wet - my shorts, my T-shirt, my
underwear.... Luckily today is a hot
and dry
day.
I should be dry again in one hour or so... (in time to catch the flight
to Bangkok at 16.45). Unless of course they throw water on me again...

04.04.00,
Tuesday evening, Bangkok

I'm in the hotel in Bangkok
right
now and am not feeling too well. This afternoon at the airport in Luang
Prabang (Laos) I had to rush very quickly to the toilet. I had diarrhea
(really liquid stuff coming out). Something like this happens to me for
the first time since I have arrived to South East Asia last August. I
have
eaten the most weird things and never got serious stomach problems.
Apparently
the food hyhiene in Laos is one level below the other countries where I
have been up to now. Probably it didn't help that for about one hour I
had wet clothes on this afternoon.

Not sure what I'm going
to do
tomorrow,
because it makes no sense to rush to an island (Koh Samet) for just one
night (if I have to catch the plane on Friday at 12pm, I have to be
back
in BKK Thursday evening). If I could catch a later flight on Friday, I
might leave the island on Friday morning.

05.04.00,
Wednesday, Bangkok

Today I didn't do much,
because
of
the diarrhea problem (this morning the shit was liquid like water...
last
time this happened to me was in January 1993 in India). I just stayed
in
bed and took some anti-diarrhea pills. I was hoping to go somewhere,
but
it's just too hot outside and I need to relax.
I changed the flight to
KL
on
Friday
from 12 (noon) to 17:10 (there was no flight around 3pm). I'll be in
KLIA around 20:15.

Internet
access in Laos

This is a bit out of date, but maybe
interesting:
Internet access in central and northern
Laos in April 2000 was available in

Vientiane: several internet cafes

Rates: 300 Kip / minute (1 US $
= 7500 Kip)

Vang Vien: at least one place, "Planet
Online"

Luang Prabang: at least
two
places,
both on Photisalat Road. One is the Planet Online (close to the
Scandinavian
bakery) and the other is Avancee Informatique (close to the
marketplace).

Rates: both charge 450 Kip per minute.

Comment of Henk Burgler:

At least another one
in Vang Vieng. At a guesthouse on the leftside of the mainstreet (river
on your right)Same rates as Planet OnlineDid not see internetcafes / email
services north or west of Luang Prabang.